New Jersey ratepayers have gotten used to hearing about rebates every summer. A new report from Garden State Initiative argues rebates were never the fix.
GSI, a Morristown-based think tank, is calling on state policymakers to scrap New Jersey’s current Energy Master Plan in favor of one built around realistic timelines and proven technologies rather than fixed mandates — with a central rule attached: don’t retire dependable power sources like nuclear and natural gas until something equally reliable is actually in place to replace them.
The report, authored by GSI policy analyst Anurag Bhat, lands as the state imports nearly 20% of the electricity it consumes and leans on natural gas for more than two-thirds of its summer power capacity. Electricity prices in New Jersey remain well above the national average, and demand keeps climbing.
“New Jersey families and businesses need more than temporary relief from rising electricity bills,” GSI President Audrey Lane said. “They need an energy policy that addresses the underlying supply and reliability challenges driving costs higher. New Jersey can pursue cleaner electricity while protecting affordability and reliability. That starts by ensuring new power supplies of all kinds are built and ready before dependable resources are retired.”
The report doesn’t argue against clean energy goals — it argues for turning them from mandates into benchmarks. Firm generation, it says, should stay online until replacement resources can be counted on to perform during summer peaks, winter peaks and multi-day stress events, without driving costs higher or compromising reliability.
GSI frames its recommended approach around three steps:
- preserve existing reliable generation — nuclear, natural gas and access to the regional PJM grid;
- build new resources that are cost-effective and actually deliverable, with the transmission infrastructure to support them;
- prepare for next-generation clean, firm technologies through evaluation that isn’t tied to any one type of power source.
One data point stands out in the report: battery storage targets set under the Murphy administration are only 5% complete, far short of what would be needed to replace firm generation at scale.
The report also looks at energy planning in California, New York, New England, Pennsylvania and Texas, concluding no state has gotten it perfectly right — but each offers a lesson for New Jersey.
“Every state offers lessons — both successes and setbacks,” Lane said. “Our report applies those lessons to New Jersey and concludes that the state needs a new, realistic Energy Master Plan. Cleaner energy, affordability, and reliability are not competing goals, but achieving all three requires better planning and a commitment to building new resources before retiring dependable ones.”
The full report, “Reliability Before Retirement: Reassessing New Jersey’s 2024 Energy Master Plan: A Framework for Affordable, Reliable Energy,” is available here.
